Dksakar (recently EU Server Legend Rank #1) shares his strategy and thoughts on the Legend Hunter rush deck. Read on!
Introduction
It’s a ‘huntard’, rush-to-the-face deck. Everyone will mock you for playing it, call you no-skill, etc. You know the drill. It’s relatively inexpensive (I managed to hit Legend and afterwards #1 without Tinkmaster Overspark, so it’s really not necessary) but Leeroy Jenkins is kind of a must. If you really have no other options, replacing both legendaries with an Arcane Shot and a Timber Wolf is quite easy (but again – try and get Leeroy).
If you pick this deck up and try to play it in Rank 5 and above, it means you’ll have to deal with Defender of Argus, Sunfury Protector, Druid of the Claw, Senjin Shieldmasta, Armorsmith game in, game out. You’ll play against Murlocs where a misplaced Explosive Trap might mean they’ll just crush your face. Your opponents will play turn 4 Chillwind Yetis while your best turn 4 play is hero ability – Bluegill Warrior. It is not an easy deck for sure. A lot of my friends picked up my list to lose horribly afterwards. If you can’t micro manage each damage dealt then this is not the deck for you.
Card Choices
There are a few notable differences between my list and other hunter rush decks. First of all, Animal Companion. I’m not a fan of it. The 2/4 beast is mediocre at best because your minions hardly live to see the next turn. 4/4 taunt is beefy for its cost but is also completely irrelevant to your gameplan. 4/2 charge is excellent – it’s so good that you don’t mind giving your opponent an extra mana with it (Arcane Golem). So it’s a card that’s pretty underwhelming 66% of the times while being excellent in other 33%. I don’t like these odds so I just don’t play it.
I don’t like Tracking either. This is a burn deck and it wins by turning mana into damage. Tracking doesn’t do that. It hurts your curve and sets you back a lot for card quality. While Starving Buzzard + Unleash the Hounds, Eaglehorn Bow, Explosive Trap are excellent cards, you don’t actually want to spend time looking for them because they’re still slightly more mana efficient than what your opponents will be packing – Chillwind Yetis, Harvest Golems, anyone? If you’re spending time to look for cards in your deck that you know are worse than the cards your opponents are playing, it’s clear who’ll win the game. This deck lives and dies by its curve and ability to dish out damage every turn so don’t compromise that strategy.
Another card I initially liked but since have abandoned is Worgen Infiltrator. It’s vastly inferior to Abusive Sergeant, which immediately deals its damage; and I like it less than Boars since Boar again deals at least 1 damage right now and has thousands of synergies which Worgen Infiltrator does not.
I love Stonetusk Boars. They’re pretty solid with their synergies – They draw a card off Starving Buzzard, hit for 2 with Timber Wolf, is another cheap charge creature for Abusive Sergeant to pump, and finally, it allows Kill Command to deal 5 damage. All of that for a 1 mana little boar. It’s pretty nice overall.
Aside from that, it’s pretty basic list – I’ve added a Tinkmaster Overspark just recently as Owl #3 and it’s been serving rather nicely.
General Strategy / How to Play the Deck
If you play like a mindless hunter and shoot everything at head, you’ll lose.
When I first made the deck, I called it Survival because that’s what I did most games – out-survive my opponent. If you ever ignore Knife Jugglers, you’ll end up playing random x/1 minions that die instantly to Knife Juggler’s ability which keeps bashing you in for 3 damage at a time. If you ignore Murloc player’s board, it’ll end up costing you very fast.
This is aggro mirrors. Aggro mirrors are all about card advantage. Generally speaking, you’re favored. All minions are roughly the same size while your’s have charge, and you have Eaglehorn Bow (which can and should be used as board control in aggro mirror), Explosive Trap (somethings paladins have to pay 4 mana to achieve) and the broken UTH/Starving Buzzard combo. The premise here is, with such a sweet card advantage engine and cheap mass removal, you want to do 1v1 trades all day every day while you keep chipping away your opponent with charge minions and hero ability.
Control matches are all about Taunt management. Do you Ironbeak Owl now or do you save it for later? Wear down the taunt minions with Explosive Trap and follow it up with Buzzard/UTH? For example, it’s a terrible idea to use Owl early in the game. Odds are you don’t have another minion on board and so you can’t take advantage of the taunt being broken. People tend to prioritize certain things – like having a taunt minion on board vs hunters. If you owl their taunt minion, they’ll then use their resources to find another one. However, if they’re feeling comfortable behind one or two taunt minions, they might then think playing that Cairne Bloodhoof out is a good move now. A golden rule is to never break a taunt unless you can immediately follow it with physical damage that turn.
Matchups
Warrior Control
It’s a grueling match, for all intents and purposes, looks like it heavily favours the Warrior, but I’ve rarely lost this one. It’s extremely annoying to watch Warrior rake back thousands of armor but such is the life. The key points is to never let Armorsmith get out of hand, never let yourself die to a Frothing Berserker out of nowhere, keep in mind that at 9 Alexstraza might just come down, and save UTH/Starving combo for later in the game.
Reynad’s Warrior Aggro
It’s all but disappeared nowadays but it’s still a deck to look out for. Their threats are slow and inefficient until turn 4 when they get access to some broken mirror tech. You’ll need to look out for early Frothing Berserker and not let it steal away the game. Both decks are similar in a lot of ways so it’ll more or less be a coin toss of who gets the better opening.
Murlock
Generally speaking, you’re the favored deck. Both of your hero abilities deal 2 damage to the warlock; you have a weapon, access to Explosive Trap, UTH/Starving Buzzard. The key is to not get greedy and play like a board control deck and the rest is academical.
Handlock
This is a small collection of random wins: http://imgur.com/a/mJ0bb This situation is generally the norm and not the exception. They’re slow, durdly and they just fall prey to direct damage. Sometimes you’ll have to hold back damage so that they can’t play a Molten Giant and give it taunt the same turn. Aside from that, this is one of the best matchups.
Shaman
More like Handlock, except they’re weaker to UTH/Starving Buzzard combo, they do not have 8/8 taunts so it’s a lot easier. Save UTH / Explosive Trap for Feral Spirit and you shouldn’t have a hard time. Sometimes killing an early Unbound Elemental can save you a lot of life so keep that in mind.
Druid
The worst matchup but not nearly half as bad as you’d expect it to be. Yes, a legion of taunt creatures is annoying but you have more than enough business to go about it anyway. Token druids are a lot easier since they make your UTH/Buzzard really sick. But most of the time it’ll be Ancient Druids with Force of Nature/Savage Roar that you’ll have to keep in mind. There’s no easy guide – just try to adapt to counter measures druid is putting your way. When on the play, always try to make a 1 mana play so that they’ll have to use the coin to deal with it. Other than that, kill/silence taunt creatures and keep bashing for face. Spam you hero ability often.
Miracle Rogue
One of the easiest matchups, like Handlock or Shaman. You really only need to look out for an early Cold Blood‘ed creature, and since they’re otherwise so slow, that it’s often useful to kill a SI:7 Agent on the spot, especially if you can just kill it with bow.
Tempo Rogue
Slightly more difficult but still heavily in your favour, since this deck is a prime victim of UtH/Starving Buzzard combo. Keep the pressure, wear their minions down with Misdirection/Explosive Trap and finish them off with a fat UtH.
Budget Replacements
The rares and Leeroy Jenkins cost a whopping 2,200 dust, which is really cheap. Mr. Jenkins isn’t really replaceable, but if you can’t have him, you should still do fine in lower brackets. Tinkmaster Overspark is a completely arbitrary choice – you really don’t need it to be honest, it’s just nice to have. You can make due with more burn like Arcane Shot or Arcane Golem.
Hope you found the article useful! Good luck!
